Top 5 reasons to BUY or NOT to buy the ASUS VivoBook 14 X415

ASUS advertises its ASUS VivoBook 14 X415 as a device to satisfy your computing needs. However, the term “computing needs” is very broad and covers areas like web browsing, gaming, or handling heavy workloads, which this machine definitely can’t do.

However, you still get access to more than decent hardware, with the CPU choices going as far as the Core i7-1165G7. With the laptop, you also get decent thermals and relatively good build quality.

Today we are presenting you with LaptopMedia’s top 5 picks about the ASUS VivoBook 14 X415.

ASUS VivoBook 14 X415: Full Specs / In-depth Review


3 reasons to BUY the ASUS VivoBook 14 X415

1. Upgradeability

The laptop offers more decent, albeit not ideal upgradeability. Half of the available RAM is soldered onto the motherboard, while the rest is accessible via a single SODIMM slot, which can house up to 32GB of DDR4 memory. As for the storage, the laptop has one M.2 PCIe x4 slot and a 2.5-inch SATA drive bay, but ASUS doesn’t provide the necessary accessories in order to mount a SATA drive, so you’d have to purchase them separately.

Here is our detailed teardown video which shows how to access all slots on the notebook.


2. Display quality

There are three 14-inch display choices, with two using TN panels and a third with an IPS panel. Our laptop featured the latter, and it had excellent viewing angles, a max brightness of 234 nits in the middle of the screen and 221 nits average across the surface with a maximum deviation of 12%, and a contrast ratio of 950:1. While the display isn’t suitable for professional work, covering only 52% of the sRGB color gamut, it shows no PWM usage after 60 nits of brightness, meaning that in most use case scenarios, it will remain flicker-free.

The color accuracy improved significantly, once we applied our Design and Gaming profile, but it still wasn’t anywhere close to being suitable for color-sensitive work. Below are the results with the factory settings (left) and with our profile applied (right).


Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for ASUS VivoBook 14 X415 configurations with 14.0″ Chi Mei N140HCA-EAC (CMN14D4) (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS panel.

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

Health-Guard

Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

Get all 3 profiles with 33% discount


3. Cooling

The cooling solution does a surprisingly good job at keeping the Core i5-1135G7 within reasonable temperatures. The cooling consists of a single copper heat pipe, that is connected to a get sink, and a fan that is on the other side of the laptop, for no apparent reason.


Max CPU load

Intel Core i5-1135G7 (15W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
ASUS VivoBook 14 X4153.31 GHz (B+38%) @ 91°C @ 37W2.71 GHz (B+13%) @ 91°C @ 25W2.40 GHz (B+0%) @ 76°C @ 20W

The CPU quickly went over 90°C and 3.00GHz, in the first seconds of the test, after which the frequency dropped to around 2.70GHz. In the last minutes of the test, the Core i5-1135G7 ran at its base speed with a temperature of 76°C.

Comfort during full load

The laptop was quiet and ran pretty cool, with an outside temperature of 35.4°C.


2 reasons NOT to buy the ASUS VivoBook 14 X415

1. I/O

The laptop has two USB Type-C 3.2 (Gen. 1), which is okay, but they get followed by two USB Type-A 2.0 ports, which are archaic by now, an HDMI connector, and a 3.5 mm audio jack. Sadly, the device does lack an SD card slot.


2. Battery life

With a battery size of 37Wh, we didn’t expect miracles, with the laptop lasting for 9 hours and 7 minutes of Web browsing, and 5 hours and 42 minutes of video playback. 9 hours and 7 minutes of Web browsing, and 5 hours and 42 minutes of video playback.


All ASUS VivoBook 14 X415 configurations:

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marcello
marcello
2 years ago

hi, Fantastic review and video. thank you for posting! Would you mind sharing how you guys got to the 32gb figure for the max capacity of the SODIMM slot!? Asus’s website claims the max to be 20gb (soldered + slot) but i believe the motherboard supports more that that. There is a way to find out the max RAM capacity via the command line typing: ” wmic memphysical get MaxCapacity, MemoryDevices “. I would check it myself if i had the laptop in hands but i sadly don’t. I’m doing research about possible upgrades before pulling the trigger and buying… Read more »

Deniz Çakır
Deniz Çakır
1 year ago
Reply to  marcello

I bought (Model number is: X415EA-EK977W) last week and added 16 GB RAM. Weirdly it seems to support 128 GB RAM.

Screenshot 2022-12-31 132703.jpg
Cheryl A Beasley
Cheryl A Beasley
1 year ago

The Intel WiFi adapter on mine crapped out after just a month of use.